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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765746">A Lion, A mage, and an Apocalypse, Oh My!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account'>orphan_account</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Mage Inquisitor (Dragon Age), Missing Scene, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Burn, no beta we die like men, not really enemies but very wary of eachother</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:08:15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,618</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26765746</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cullen and Mages had a concerning amount of history. Cullen also often had many run ins with said Mages becoming powerful women in history. </p><p>He was still bright eyed, still so young when his infatuation with Selene Amell had started. So young when he watched her out of the corner of his eye as she studied in the library, gold strands of hair falling into her face as she stayed up to read with tired eyes. So young when he held a trembling sword to the girl's throat as she writhed on the floor during a harrowing, barely a handful of years younger than himself. Still so young when she stood before him a grey warden, looking on his shaking form with pity as he raved like the broken lunatic he was. </p><p>Older now, much older, Cullen was officially done with his history concerning certain pretty mages. However, he had never expected yet another one to just fall into his life at the most inopportune time.</p><p>--- </p><p>Yet another Cullen/Mage inquisitor slow burn story.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bianca Davri/Varric Tethras, Female Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Female Lavellan/Cullen Rutherford, Inquisitor/Cullen Rutherford, Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>A Lion, A mage, and an Apocalypse, Oh My!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Woah boy here we go.</p><p>Basically a rewrite of a fic I started a few months ago that I wasn't digging anymore.</p><p>I am NOWHERE near a professional, nor really even a hobbiest. I just really love DA and need to word vomit it somewhere.</p><p>This is not beta read so please please please tell me any mistakes there may be- I am always eager to make anything I create better. Please leave some comments and kudos, they make me very happy :')</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Dark. So bloody dark.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Her head hung forward, chin digging into her chest. Despite the low lighting a slow throbbing behind her eyes is what brought her to from the icy depths of sleep still grasping at the edges of her consciousness. The sharp pain shooting up her convulsing arm is what shot her completely out of it, eyes snapping open as her jaw snapped shut with a hiss. It felt like she had been stabbed, shot, beaten, and run over all at the same time </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘What a sight that would be,’</span>
  </em>
  <span> she thought, semi-bitterly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The slam of a door flooded the room with light, an angry voice cutting her off from her painful reverie.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Tell me why we shouldn’t kill you now,” </span>
  </em>
  <span>A rather severe looking woman ground out. She spoke with a finality that the currently shackled woman took to mean ‘I will not be asking again’ and if the swords she now realized surrounded her meant anything, it was </span>
  <em>
    <span>that. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She wanted to answer desperately, as anyone would if their life was rather seriously being threatened, but the words wouldn’t tumble forth. The woman took this as her opportunity to continue, “The conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead,” She paused, circling her like some kind of beast ready to tear and destroy, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Except</span>
  </em>
  <span> for you,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This caused the chained girl to blanche. That was not something anyone would want to hear upon waking up, let alone from a complete (and very angry) stranger. She stammered, eyes searching just about everywhere from the dirty floor to the small glimpse of the outside world she could see before landing solidly on the woman who had ceased her circling. Her eyes, while warm in color, cut like ice. They cut straight down to the depth of her soul. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean everyone is dead? Everyone? That’s just-” The woman cut her off by grabbing the- now glowing, she realized- hand lying limp in shackles at her knees. Her grip was too firm, causing her to wince. She tried to scoot away, to look anywhere but the woman before her despite how guilty it may have made her look. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Explain this,” The dark haired woman said in a clipped, foreign accent. One she could not quite place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I-” her words died lamely in her throat. What </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>that thing? Where even was she, locked up like this? “Can’t…?” She responded lamely. And she really couldn’t. One moment she was… somewhere, and now she was here with gravel in her knees, a glowing gash on her hand, and a sword at her throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman laughed without humor, eyes squinting, “What do you mean you can’t?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean I can’t!” She blurted out. She bit her tongue, trying to reign her emotions back inside, “I just can’t. I don’t know what it is, how it got there, or why. I’m sorry,” she said as calmly as possible, surprised at the steadiness of her voice, even when the angered woman before her lunged toward her frozen form. A previously unseen figure grabbed the seething warrior, pulling her back as accusations of murder and terror shot round after round out of her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Cassandra!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>the figure- a cloaked woman- sniped. A clear warning. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘At least I have a name’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>she thought cooly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Listen,” she started, “I don’t know where I am or why but I’m presuming it’s because of the conclave. I mean,” She paused with a swallow, shaking her head, “all of those people,” she spoke softly, looking to the cloaked woman. “And not that you asked but, I am Kieran of Clan Lavallen. I truly don’t know why I’m here- or </span>
  <em>
    <span>how,” </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra loomed behind the cloaked woman, no doubt cursing Kieran in her mind. If looks could kill, she would’ve been dead five times over. Said cloaked woman moved closer, crouching slightly to mean her eye,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You mean you don’t remember? How this began?” she took yet another step closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kieran sighed at this woman's much calmer demeanor despite being deathly aware of Cassandra circling her yet again with heavy metal footfalls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really even know where to begin. I was running from something, no doubt about that. It was so, </span>
  <em>
    <span>so </span>
  </em>
  <span>dark. These things were after me but,” She swallowed, “But there was a woman,” the cloaked woman quirked a thin brow, “She reached out to me, grabbed my hand- but after that?” she looked around, “I was here,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kieran was truly puzzled, and as it seemed so we’re her two human companions. She remembered certain things. Remembered being sent to the conclave by Keeper Deshanna. Remembered the grueling travel- by creators the </span>
  <em>
    <span>blisters</span>
  </em>
  <span>- remembered the weight of the ironwood staff cool against her hand for…. For some reason… but after that? It was all gone. Like she had simply blinked and woken up in the cold chains locking her being to the floor. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra let out an aggravated sigh, pinching her brow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go,” she said lowly, “Go to the forward camps, Leliana. I will take her to the rift,” The woman- Leliana? Nodded, briskly turning on a heel to leave. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If her hands were free there was no doubt Kieran would be wiping sweat off her pale forehead. The already frigid room seemed to drop by another twenty degrees after mention of the </span>
  <em>
    <span>rift. ‘Like that wasn’t completely fucking ominus at all,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>She almost wanted to laugh, to throw her hands in the air and just laugh like a complete lunatic. None of this could be real, she thought, but the quick thudding of Cassandra making her way, quite quickly, towards her reaffirmed that </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes this was absolutely real. </span>
  </em>
  <span>She clenched her jaw, willing herself to stay still. There wasn’t much dignity being in chains, that much was true, but whatever morsels of it she could wish to hold onto were proverbial clutched tight between her hands. She bit her tongue, the taste of iron filling her mouth as she pressed the flesh between her molars. Kieran, so focused on not losing it hadn’t noticed till her feet were pressed firmly on the ground- Cassandra had stood her up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She winced as she stood fully, joints popping like wood on a fire. It was barely perceptible, but Cassandra had paused in her rage to truly look over the girl before her. While not by much, she had been taller than the Phentagast. Noticing this, Kieran did her own scan of the woman before her. Everything about her was severe. The pinch of her brow, the cut of her gaze, and the muscular width of her slightly shorter frame. She almost felt a little insecure next to the human, clothed in metal plate armor, obviously scuffed in used versus her own light travel tunic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cassandra shook out of her mild surprise with a slight turn of her head, nodding towards the slightly open door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It would be,” she pursed her lips, seeming to search for the right words to say, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>easier </span>
  </em>
  <span>to just show you,” she said grimly. Kieran almost wanted to cry. Unease bubbled in her chest like bile as Cassandra grasped her non-glowy arm and led her to the door. Like a death march, slow and painful, they made their way outside. At first, the natural light of the world was almost too bright- even for one that spent many, many months of their life in the sun of the forest. The throbbing in her head and hand became nearly unbearable as she shambled onward, gaining enough courage to raise her pained eyes to the crackling neon sky.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A gasp fell from her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even though she felt Cassandra tugging her chains, she stood firmed, gaze affixed to the sky in horrified awe. Clouds swirled around like a great storm pulled straight from the darkest depths of the fade. It popped and hissed with a nasty, frenetic energy; the very same one crawling its way from the green wound on her hand. She could see her dark haired companion out of the corner of her wide eyes, swapping her vision slowly to her as she started to speak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We call it the breach,” she said, “It’s a massive rift into the world of demons and it grows with every passing hour,” Kieran turned fully to face her. Devastation in her grey eyes were mirrored by the exhaustion in Cassandra’s own amber gaze. For once they didn’t cut, instead holding a sense of commiseration at the shocking revelation. The human broke the eye contact first, shifting to look toward the sky, “it’s not the only rift,”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Oh my fuc-’</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just the largest,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh </span>
  <em>
    <span>thank </span>
  </em>
  <span>Mythal,” she had almost puked up the non-existent food in her gut.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <b>All </b>
  <span>were caused by an explosion at the conclave,” Cassandra told her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An explosion can do all that?” Kieran questioned, disbelieving. No normal explosion would cleave the heavens in two; it was impossible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This one did,” Cassandra snapped, shutting down that topic of conversation. Kieran understood no matter how her knees shook with anxiety. It’s likely Cassandra didn’t know the answer to the many questions swirling in her mind. She had just opened her mouth to respond when the sky exploded with a sudden burst of energy- as did her hand. Had it not been for Cassandra holding the chains still attached to her wrists, Kieran would’ve been fully on the ground. Her knees landed with a loud thud as she cried out, spasming while the bone chilling lick of green flame shot up and in her arm. She stared in disbelief as the green light spread. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Looking up to Cassandra through clenched teeth and unshed tears it became very clear.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This was going to kill her.</span>
  </em>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>There we go. Just a boring introductory chapter. I always start my story out extremely canon compliant before I throw some missing scenes and other tasty bits in, it helps me get into it. So believe me there is a lot more fun stuff to come!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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